When I wrote about my chosen research site, I didn't know at all what I was doing with this project, and at that point I'd chosen a specific website to examine. That approach didn't really work for the way my project was going, and since it eventually turned into an autoethnographic study of my own experiences as a fanfiction writer, my site changed as well.
For this project I was, essentially, studying myself and my experiences. That still ended up being a little more nebulous than I'd have liked, but it did narrow my focus onto my own fanfiction, the ways I attempted to gain attention (and reviews) for it, how that attention or lack thereof affected my writing, and the specific attention and reviews my fanfiction received. That makes my study a little more difficult to quantify as a research site, of course, given that it's different from what might be expected.
However, my position as a community insider (though by no means really well-known in the community, just familiar with it) does give me a perspective that's not often seen with such studies. I can more easily look at the specific practices of writing and distributing fanfiction, since it's likely that many other writers have similar practices to mine, and I can look at my own motivations for what I do since they'll be quite plain to me. The primary participant is of course myself, but given that I'm also viewing the comments I receive, the actual participants in these exchanges can fluctuate.
Aside from being a member of fandom in general, I'm also a member of numerous specific fan communities on Livejournal, and the vast majority of my friends are also members of the same fandoms I am, making my actions community-building exercises on a number of levels. I'm also a member of the sub-community of fandom that values high-quality fanfiction, which is a somewhat nebulous term in itself, but other community members would probably define such fiction as being of publishable quality--if it weren't for copyright restrictions, of course. Writers of quality fanfiction are eager to improve their works and are open to constructive criticism, and they apply traditional practices of good writing to their work.
For the most part, I find that fanfiction is rarely studied from an insider's perspective, which often leads to misconceptions and the alienating of those being studied. A closer, more critical, and more nuanced look at fanfiction could definitely be valuable to this field of study.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Revision: synthesis of related research
(The original version of this post can be found here.)
Academic studies of fanfiction seem to have come a bit behind studies of fandom in general. Henry Jenkins, one of the biggest names in fandom studies, has spent a good deal of his career trying to legitimize the study of fan practices as a fan himself, and has seen the field come a long way; originally, even academics writing sympathetic audience ethnographies did so from a strictly outsider viewpoint, trying to remain separate from the fans themselves and often introducing significant misconceptions and errors to their work because of this perspective. As the existence of the fan-as-academic and academic-as-fan have become accepted, however, fandom studies itself has become more accepted as a worthwhile field of study, opening up opportunities for close study of fandoms and fan practices by the fans themselves.
Fanfiction has generally been included in these studies of fan practices, but it seems that actual study of fanfiction by itself has largely happened in recent years--and even then, studies of fanfiction may be playing catch-up with studies of general fan practices in that little has been written from an insider's perspective. Studies of fanfiction seem to take either a cultural/sociological or an educational approach, often blending the two. Rebecca Black's work is fairly representative in this case--"Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction," from Lankshear and Knobel's A New Literacies Sampler, is one of at least two articles she has written about the role of fanfiction in English language learners' developing English-language skills, and other studies that focus on the young age of many fanwriters emphasize the skills that these writers can gain through writing about something they enjoy in a relaxed environment. Henry Jenkins, too, has devoted an entire book-length report (Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century) to the use of new literacies and the media in education, making reference to fanfiction only in this context.
Other studies of fanfiction tend to look at what this fan practice says about the communities and individuals who participate in it and how these fans use fanfic to explore their own identities; Angela Thomas' "Blurring the Boundaries of Narrative, Literacy, and Identity in Adolescent Fan Fiction" is one such example, focusing on the young authors in question and the ways in which they collaborate to write their stories. Other articles examine fanfiction from the perspective of gender studies, thanks to the popularity of slash (male/male) and femmeslash (female/female) fiction in fandom.
However, such studies often fail to examine the actual content of the stories and their actual place in the fan community, largely because of this outsider perspective--it's difficult to ascertain a text's place in a community with which one isn't intimately familiar. Chander and Sunder's "Everyone's a Superhero," for instance, recasts the Mary Sue character type as an empowering voice of social dissension. Given that a Mary Sue is a cliched, one-dimensional, and generally perfect character inserted by the author (or, at times, a canon character twisted out of character using these characteristics), often as wish-fulfillment, it should be easy to see why the fan community in general derides these sorts of characters, and while Chander and Sunder acknowledge this view, they use the Mary Sue as essentially a feminist model rather than examining why the community holds this view--and in doing so they introduce a number of inaccuracies of their own that reveal what appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the fan community, if this extremely unusual view of Mary Sues didn't already work to alienate that community. While significantly older, Felder and Scodari's "Creating a Pocket Universe" creates a similar effect, examining X-Files fans and casting "Shippers" (fans devoted to a particular relationship in a fandom) in that community as a marginal subgroup somewhat antagonistic and resistant to the creators of the show...a rather odd stance to take, given that shippers exist in every fandom, most fans are shippers to one degree or another, and the ship in question (Scully/Mulder) was not only about as mainstream as you can get, it was also likely shared by a significant portion of the show's fanbase, even if only the "Shipper" segment was vocal about it.
Jenkins, even if he doesn't devote as much space as I might like to fanfiction, sums up these difficulties very well. He began writing about fandom just as academics were discovering it, so he experienced fandom studies as both a fan and an academic, which created a rather uncomfortable position for him: "Historically, academics had abused that power [imbalance between fans and those who studied them], constructing exotic and self-serving representations of fans. Even many of the most sympathetic audience ethnographers signaled their distance from the communities they described. I did not have the option of distancing myself from the fan community. What I knew about fandom I knew from the inside out." From the opposite perspective, too, "fans have often been hypercritical of academics because of their sloppiness with the details that are so central to fan interpretation."
Fandom studies have come far, particularly as the field has become more open to insider interpretations; what it lacks is much in the way of similar treatment toward fanfiction. The few articles that take a critical insider approach tend to be from popular magazines and newspapers rather than academic journals, such as Young's "The Fan Fiction Phenomena," written by a self-professed Xena fanwriter. She describes the frustration of "the high crap-to-quality ratio" and the genuine danger that "inexperienced readers may develop seriously skewed standards of what constitutes a readable story," noting that reviewers on fanfiction.net will often compliment a writer simply for having good grammar and spelling since those qualities are so uncommon there--but her article is a brief overview, not an in-depth study.
References:
Black, Rebecca. "Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction." A New Literacies Sampler. Ed. Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 115-136.
Chander, Anupam and Madhavi Sunder. "Everyone's a Superhero: A Cultural Theory of "Mary Sue" Fan Fiction as Fair Use." California Law Review 95.2 (2007): 597-626.
Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
---. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009.
Scodari, Christine and Jenna Felder. "Creating a pocket universe: "Shippers," fan fiction, and The X-Files online." Communication Studies 51.3 (2000): 238-258.
Thomas, Angela. "Blurring and Breaking Through the Boundaries of Narrative, Literacy, and Identity in Adolescent Fan Fiction." A New Literacies Sampler. Ed. Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 137-165.
Young, Cathy. "The Fan Fiction Phenomena." Reason 38.9 (2007): 14-15.
Academic studies of fanfiction seem to have come a bit behind studies of fandom in general. Henry Jenkins, one of the biggest names in fandom studies, has spent a good deal of his career trying to legitimize the study of fan practices as a fan himself, and has seen the field come a long way; originally, even academics writing sympathetic audience ethnographies did so from a strictly outsider viewpoint, trying to remain separate from the fans themselves and often introducing significant misconceptions and errors to their work because of this perspective. As the existence of the fan-as-academic and academic-as-fan have become accepted, however, fandom studies itself has become more accepted as a worthwhile field of study, opening up opportunities for close study of fandoms and fan practices by the fans themselves.
Fanfiction has generally been included in these studies of fan practices, but it seems that actual study of fanfiction by itself has largely happened in recent years--and even then, studies of fanfiction may be playing catch-up with studies of general fan practices in that little has been written from an insider's perspective. Studies of fanfiction seem to take either a cultural/sociological or an educational approach, often blending the two. Rebecca Black's work is fairly representative in this case--"Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction," from Lankshear and Knobel's A New Literacies Sampler, is one of at least two articles she has written about the role of fanfiction in English language learners' developing English-language skills, and other studies that focus on the young age of many fanwriters emphasize the skills that these writers can gain through writing about something they enjoy in a relaxed environment. Henry Jenkins, too, has devoted an entire book-length report (Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century) to the use of new literacies and the media in education, making reference to fanfiction only in this context.
Other studies of fanfiction tend to look at what this fan practice says about the communities and individuals who participate in it and how these fans use fanfic to explore their own identities; Angela Thomas' "Blurring the Boundaries of Narrative, Literacy, and Identity in Adolescent Fan Fiction" is one such example, focusing on the young authors in question and the ways in which they collaborate to write their stories. Other articles examine fanfiction from the perspective of gender studies, thanks to the popularity of slash (male/male) and femmeslash (female/female) fiction in fandom.
However, such studies often fail to examine the actual content of the stories and their actual place in the fan community, largely because of this outsider perspective--it's difficult to ascertain a text's place in a community with which one isn't intimately familiar. Chander and Sunder's "Everyone's a Superhero," for instance, recasts the Mary Sue character type as an empowering voice of social dissension. Given that a Mary Sue is a cliched, one-dimensional, and generally perfect character inserted by the author (or, at times, a canon character twisted out of character using these characteristics), often as wish-fulfillment, it should be easy to see why the fan community in general derides these sorts of characters, and while Chander and Sunder acknowledge this view, they use the Mary Sue as essentially a feminist model rather than examining why the community holds this view--and in doing so they introduce a number of inaccuracies of their own that reveal what appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the fan community, if this extremely unusual view of Mary Sues didn't already work to alienate that community. While significantly older, Felder and Scodari's "Creating a Pocket Universe" creates a similar effect, examining X-Files fans and casting "Shippers" (fans devoted to a particular relationship in a fandom) in that community as a marginal subgroup somewhat antagonistic and resistant to the creators of the show...a rather odd stance to take, given that shippers exist in every fandom, most fans are shippers to one degree or another, and the ship in question (Scully/Mulder) was not only about as mainstream as you can get, it was also likely shared by a significant portion of the show's fanbase, even if only the "Shipper" segment was vocal about it.
Jenkins, even if he doesn't devote as much space as I might like to fanfiction, sums up these difficulties very well. He began writing about fandom just as academics were discovering it, so he experienced fandom studies as both a fan and an academic, which created a rather uncomfortable position for him: "Historically, academics had abused that power [imbalance between fans and those who studied them], constructing exotic and self-serving representations of fans. Even many of the most sympathetic audience ethnographers signaled their distance from the communities they described. I did not have the option of distancing myself from the fan community. What I knew about fandom I knew from the inside out." From the opposite perspective, too, "fans have often been hypercritical of academics because of their sloppiness with the details that are so central to fan interpretation."
Fandom studies have come far, particularly as the field has become more open to insider interpretations; what it lacks is much in the way of similar treatment toward fanfiction. The few articles that take a critical insider approach tend to be from popular magazines and newspapers rather than academic journals, such as Young's "The Fan Fiction Phenomena," written by a self-professed Xena fanwriter. She describes the frustration of "the high crap-to-quality ratio" and the genuine danger that "inexperienced readers may develop seriously skewed standards of what constitutes a readable story," noting that reviewers on fanfiction.net will often compliment a writer simply for having good grammar and spelling since those qualities are so uncommon there--but her article is a brief overview, not an in-depth study.
References:
Black, Rebecca. "Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction." A New Literacies Sampler. Ed. Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 115-136.
Chander, Anupam and Madhavi Sunder. "Everyone's a Superhero: A Cultural Theory of "Mary Sue" Fan Fiction as Fair Use." California Law Review 95.2 (2007): 597-626.
Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
---. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009.
Scodari, Christine and Jenna Felder. "Creating a pocket universe: "Shippers," fan fiction, and The X-Files online." Communication Studies 51.3 (2000): 238-258.
Thomas, Angela. "Blurring and Breaking Through the Boundaries of Narrative, Literacy, and Identity in Adolescent Fan Fiction." A New Literacies Sampler. Ed. Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 137-165.
Young, Cathy. "The Fan Fiction Phenomena." Reason 38.9 (2007): 14-15.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Conclusions & implications
In the first place, of course, not only am I studying fanfiction and the space in which it exists (fandom is an integral part of fanfiction, naturally, since the latter can't really exist without the former), I'm also studying myself and my experiences. That...makes it just a little difficult, given that I'm then analyzing myself, a subject I can't approach with any degree of objectivity. That seems to be part of the point of an autoethnography, if Ellis and Bochner's "Analyzing Analytic Autoethnography: An Autopsy" is any indication, and my closeness with my own work and the connections I've made with others through fandom makes some analytical objectivity even harder to achieve. I can look at certain parts of fandom in sometimes tolerant or alarmed amusement (or just plain alarm with a side of disgust, when it comes to the inordinately large amount of crazy in the Twilight fandom...), but I can't be detached.
That, more than anything else, makes my project different from the normal in studies of fanfiction, and it's my biggest reason for wanting to continue this project in one way or another: the vast majority of academic views of fanfiction come from an outsider's perspective, rarely looking at the value the community itself places on certain aspects of fanfiction, at what is and is not valued in the community, what practices are applauded and derided and why, what quality fanfiction looks like and who writes and reads it. Articles from an insider perspective do exist, but they tend to be short pieces written for a popular audience rather than in-depth studies of the fanfiction community and its practices, which means that such in-depth studies tend to misrepresent or ignore aspects of that community. Black's article on English language learners, for instance, fails to situate the fanfic she studies in a larger context, in that the conventions of fanfiction.net and the anime fandom have some distinct differences from other parts of fandom--some of the author's practices are actually frowned upon within fandom, and her writing itself is fairly mediocre, compared to publication-quality work produced by some fanwriters. It's still better than average, however, particularly compared to others in her age group, and the fact that she's highly receptive to critical feedback is itself unusual, two pertinent facts that Black seems to overlook. That sense of widespread fan practices and conventions would help set apart an insider perspective from an outsider's.
Some existing studies do take a somewhat more critical approach, pointing out some of the downfalls to fanfiction without condemning it across the board, but there's still a lack of this sort of study. Pointing out that fanfiction should be held to the same standards as original writing and listing some of the pitfalls of bad fanfiction is one thing, but the majority of fanwriters just don't care enough to get a beta reader to "help budding writers avoid these embarrassing gaffs," and only an insider perspective will tell you what is and isn't typical in the fanwriting community. The practice of beta reading would itself be an interesting focus of study, as would the practice of "sporking" bad fanfic (mocking them in the manner of Mystery Science Theater 3000, essentially), but these practices aren't likely to be on the radar of a community outsider.
Expanding on fanfiction studies from an insider's perspective could help open this field up to more exploration from those who already have a stake in it, which would be valuable in and of itself--rather than speculating on why certain groups write certain kinds of fanfic, those writers themselves could enter the academic arena to examine the practices of their own community. Dismantling misconceptions, it seems to me, is always worthwhile.
That, more than anything else, makes my project different from the normal in studies of fanfiction, and it's my biggest reason for wanting to continue this project in one way or another: the vast majority of academic views of fanfiction come from an outsider's perspective, rarely looking at the value the community itself places on certain aspects of fanfiction, at what is and is not valued in the community, what practices are applauded and derided and why, what quality fanfiction looks like and who writes and reads it. Articles from an insider perspective do exist, but they tend to be short pieces written for a popular audience rather than in-depth studies of the fanfiction community and its practices, which means that such in-depth studies tend to misrepresent or ignore aspects of that community. Black's article on English language learners, for instance, fails to situate the fanfic she studies in a larger context, in that the conventions of fanfiction.net and the anime fandom have some distinct differences from other parts of fandom--some of the author's practices are actually frowned upon within fandom, and her writing itself is fairly mediocre, compared to publication-quality work produced by some fanwriters. It's still better than average, however, particularly compared to others in her age group, and the fact that she's highly receptive to critical feedback is itself unusual, two pertinent facts that Black seems to overlook. That sense of widespread fan practices and conventions would help set apart an insider perspective from an outsider's.
Some existing studies do take a somewhat more critical approach, pointing out some of the downfalls to fanfiction without condemning it across the board, but there's still a lack of this sort of study. Pointing out that fanfiction should be held to the same standards as original writing and listing some of the pitfalls of bad fanfiction is one thing, but the majority of fanwriters just don't care enough to get a beta reader to "help budding writers avoid these embarrassing gaffs," and only an insider perspective will tell you what is and isn't typical in the fanwriting community. The practice of beta reading would itself be an interesting focus of study, as would the practice of "sporking" bad fanfic (mocking them in the manner of Mystery Science Theater 3000, essentially), but these practices aren't likely to be on the radar of a community outsider.
Expanding on fanfiction studies from an insider's perspective could help open this field up to more exploration from those who already have a stake in it, which would be valuable in and of itself--rather than speculating on why certain groups write certain kinds of fanfic, those writers themselves could enter the academic arena to examine the practices of their own community. Dismantling misconceptions, it seems to me, is always worthwhile.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Free choice: data analysis
For reasons I still don't entirely understand, I've spent this entire project having a difficult time getting my head around what exactly I meant to do with it, despite a not inconsiderable amount of feedback, a large amount of background knowledge in my digital literacy field, and a reasonable (but probably not long enough) amount of time spent interacting in that field during the semester. So, I suppose, this post is another attempt to figure out what interests me so much about fanfiction, for one thing, and what makes it a worthy field of study.
So, this entry is another way of trying to work that out, this time through analyzing another chunk of data. That's because I have more actual data to analyze, in the form of a fairly short fanfic I finished and posted just this weekend--the first fanfic I've finished in over a year, sadly. I wrote all of it this semester, a significant amount of it during November when I was sort of participating in mini-NaNoWriMo, and as such things tend to do, it became rather longer than I'd intended. A brief exploration of a scene not explicitly described in canon doesn't sound like it should take long, after all, but between lots of internal monologue and a flashback, it clocked in at 2,300 words. (And yet, despite how parts of it were like pulling teeth, it was so much easier than writing a shorter academic paper. Go figure.)
I think the idea for this fic came to me at some point while I was reading or reading about the Twilight franchise, despite the fact that the fic itself has absolutely nothing to do with Twilight but is rather a Harry Potter fic set during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, fleshing out Remus' return to his wife. I don't remember what specifically brought me to write about this, but it may have been realizing that while I genuinely like the character of Tonks as she's presented in the books, there's not a lot in canon that clearly shows she's not just as blindly obsessed with Remus as, say, Bella is with Edward--or that she has a sense of what is and isn't healthy for her, or even that she's the strong young woman I see in most fanfiction about her. I didn't want to see her as weak or silly; I wanted even less to think that she had anything in common with Bella. (Um...yes, I do have some issues with Twilight; can you tell?)
The actual writing took me a while, mostly because I tended to do it in bursts, often late at night when it was much easier to sleep rather than write. I had to strike a fine balance with both characters, remaining true to their portrayal in canon while still expressing my own personal canon with how I wanted them to act. The romantic elements needed to seem realistic too, not forced or unnatural, which was a bit difficult given that I haven't read a lot in that genre and have written even less. Then it required a little editing--smoothing out rough patches, adding a few necessary paragraphs to the beginning, sticking in several more paragraphs of dialogue where it turned out I'd skipped over something--before I could finally post it. I suspect this sort of process is common to many fanfic writers, or at least the ones I know, although it's by no means common to all writers (for instance, nothing can convince me that a fic about Voldemort and several Death Eaters having a party with pizza and chick flicks is somehow a good idea).
After I posted the finished product to my writing journal, I cross-posted it to several other communities on Livejournal where I might be able to get people to read and comment on the fic. Cross-posting isn't an official Livejournal term or a fandom term per se, although it probably appears most often in fandom-related situations; it simply means that the content in question has been posted in more than one location, such as two communities or a community and a blogger's personal journal. Livejournal has no built-in feature to do this, so it just means that the blogger makes as many new posts as are necessary, each to a different community, copying and pasting the exact same post each time. In my case, I posted this fanfic header to 30 different Livejournal communities:
In this case, so I don't go crazy trying to remember where I posted it and what comments I got, I wrote the header exactly like this so that anyone who came across it in any of these many communities would click the link and arrive at my writing journal, instead of actually reposting the fic itself to all 30 communities. I've also done this cross-posting over a space of two days, starting with communities I'd already joined and then expanding to others I found through those communities or through Livejournal searches of interests. Some of these are more active than others, although that's true of any online community.
So far, out of these 30 communities (plus fanfiction.net) where I've posted this fic, I've received these comments:
What I find interesting here is that I have, thus far, posted this particular fic to more communities than I have any of the others, thereby exposing it to the widest potential readership, but it's received a proportionally smaller number of comments. "The Lost Boy," by contrast, was only posted in 8 places but received at least 19 comments and an award. The two fics are of roughly the same length, and both involve the Harry Potter fandom, but the new fanfic is Harry Potter only, focusing on a tense moment in Lupin and Tonks' relationship, while "The Lost Boy" is a Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover that details a child's minor adventure. I actually would have expected a basic piece of Remus/Tonks angstfluff to get more attention than a crossover, since crossovers do tend to narrow a potential audience further: they must be familiar with both fandoms and be open to the possibility of crossing the two, for instance. I would also expect the Harry Potter fandom in general to be pretty active, given that it's the largest category at fanfiction.net and the movies are keeping it in the public consciousness, but it's also possible I didn't post in the right places or Remus/Tonks simply isn't as popular as I'd like.
I was pleased by the fact that more than one commenter related having not seen a similar situation in this sort of fic before and agreed with my portrayal of Tonks, at least; I also seemed to get a slightly higher proportion of detailed reviews (by which I mean, more detailed than "Love it!" or the like). And oddly enough, I also got a review on a much older fic, apparently from someone who came across my writing journal through one of my cross-postings--but not only did she not comment on the fic I'd actually posted, she would have had to do a considerable amount of browsing in my writing journal to find the one she did comment on. But anyone who's actually read this far is probably going ANGELS AND MINISTERS OF GRACE PRESERVE US, ENOUGH WORD VOMIT NO ONE CARES, so I'll stop.
So, this entry is another way of trying to work that out, this time through analyzing another chunk of data. That's because I have more actual data to analyze, in the form of a fairly short fanfic I finished and posted just this weekend--the first fanfic I've finished in over a year, sadly. I wrote all of it this semester, a significant amount of it during November when I was sort of participating in mini-NaNoWriMo, and as such things tend to do, it became rather longer than I'd intended. A brief exploration of a scene not explicitly described in canon doesn't sound like it should take long, after all, but between lots of internal monologue and a flashback, it clocked in at 2,300 words. (And yet, despite how parts of it were like pulling teeth, it was so much easier than writing a shorter academic paper. Go figure.)
I think the idea for this fic came to me at some point while I was reading or reading about the Twilight franchise, despite the fact that the fic itself has absolutely nothing to do with Twilight but is rather a Harry Potter fic set during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, fleshing out Remus' return to his wife. I don't remember what specifically brought me to write about this, but it may have been realizing that while I genuinely like the character of Tonks as she's presented in the books, there's not a lot in canon that clearly shows she's not just as blindly obsessed with Remus as, say, Bella is with Edward--or that she has a sense of what is and isn't healthy for her, or even that she's the strong young woman I see in most fanfiction about her. I didn't want to see her as weak or silly; I wanted even less to think that she had anything in common with Bella. (Um...yes, I do have some issues with Twilight; can you tell?)
The actual writing took me a while, mostly because I tended to do it in bursts, often late at night when it was much easier to sleep rather than write. I had to strike a fine balance with both characters, remaining true to their portrayal in canon while still expressing my own personal canon with how I wanted them to act. The romantic elements needed to seem realistic too, not forced or unnatural, which was a bit difficult given that I haven't read a lot in that genre and have written even less. Then it required a little editing--smoothing out rough patches, adding a few necessary paragraphs to the beginning, sticking in several more paragraphs of dialogue where it turned out I'd skipped over something--before I could finally post it. I suspect this sort of process is common to many fanfic writers, or at least the ones I know, although it's by no means common to all writers (for instance, nothing can convince me that a fic about Voldemort and several Death Eaters having a party with pizza and chick flicks is somehow a good idea).
After I posted the finished product to my writing journal, I cross-posted it to several other communities on Livejournal where I might be able to get people to read and comment on the fic. Cross-posting isn't an official Livejournal term or a fandom term per se, although it probably appears most often in fandom-related situations; it simply means that the content in question has been posted in more than one location, such as two communities or a community and a blogger's personal journal. Livejournal has no built-in feature to do this, so it just means that the blogger makes as many new posts as are necessary, each to a different community, copying and pasting the exact same post each time. In my case, I posted this fanfic header to 30 different Livejournal communities:
Title: Only the Cause and End of Movement
Fandom: Harry Potter
Format & Word Count: Fic, 2,000 words
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Remus/Tonks, with appearances by Ted and Andromeda Tonks
Description: Angst with a side order of romantic fluff.
Warnings: Various Deathly Hallows spoilers regarding Remus and Tonks' relationship. Also, did I mention angst?
Summary: Remus comes home for the last time.
(love is itself unmoving, only the cause and end of movement)
In this case, so I don't go crazy trying to remember where I posted it and what comments I got, I wrote the header exactly like this so that anyone who came across it in any of these many communities would click the link and arrive at my writing journal, instead of actually reposting the fic itself to all 30 communities. I've also done this cross-posting over a space of two days, starting with communities I'd already joined and then expanding to others I found through those communities or through Livejournal searches of interests. Some of these are more active than others, although that's true of any online community.
So far, out of these 30 communities (plus fanfiction.net) where I've posted this fic, I've received these comments:
MaidenStar:
This is a really awesome, well written oneshot and I really loved it =) I think this has to be one of the best Remus-returning-to-Tonks fics I've read, which I think is mainly to do with the way you captured Tonks and her reaction to Remus coming home. I liked that you didn't want her to seem foolish and shallow because that's not how I like to see her character either. This was a gem of a oneshot, thanks for posting!
piratecatarina: Love love love it. Please write lots more.
eternal_moonie: totally awesome!
pretty_panther: I love it. Beautiful work!! And a really realistic take on them both that you don't get often. I love it:)
ladielazarus: Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I loved the style of it, as well. Well done, all around. :)
catastrofica: i've almost cried reading your fanfiction.
Remus is absolutely stupid by his fears, but i still love him, and, of course, with my dearing Dora.
great job. <3
(sorry my awful english, but i'm a brazilian reader. =P)
sspring92: Just lovely. you rally captured the inner turmoil of Remus and the strength of Tonks. I love her telling him she won't let him do this to her child and that he needs to make up his mind! Love to see more from you! Are you signed up at metamorfic_moon Christmas Cracker event?
lilyrin: I love Remus!! =DDD
Nice story. >3< Really liked it!! <3
faeriemaiden (commented by retweeting my link to my fic on Twitter, rather than leaving comments on the fic itself): ♥! Remus/Tonks, Eliot references, angsty delicious AWESOME. RT @100_indecisions http://theturningworld.livejournal.com/12214.html
Go forth to read this fic(& comment); it is gorgeous. Only the Cause & End of Movement(Remus/Tonks) by @100_indecisions http://bit.ly/8oH2q0
What I find interesting here is that I have, thus far, posted this particular fic to more communities than I have any of the others, thereby exposing it to the widest potential readership, but it's received a proportionally smaller number of comments. "The Lost Boy," by contrast, was only posted in 8 places but received at least 19 comments and an award. The two fics are of roughly the same length, and both involve the Harry Potter fandom, but the new fanfic is Harry Potter only, focusing on a tense moment in Lupin and Tonks' relationship, while "The Lost Boy" is a Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover that details a child's minor adventure. I actually would have expected a basic piece of Remus/Tonks angstfluff to get more attention than a crossover, since crossovers do tend to narrow a potential audience further: they must be familiar with both fandoms and be open to the possibility of crossing the two, for instance. I would also expect the Harry Potter fandom in general to be pretty active, given that it's the largest category at fanfiction.net and the movies are keeping it in the public consciousness, but it's also possible I didn't post in the right places or Remus/Tonks simply isn't as popular as I'd like.
I was pleased by the fact that more than one commenter related having not seen a similar situation in this sort of fic before and agreed with my portrayal of Tonks, at least; I also seemed to get a slightly higher proportion of detailed reviews (by which I mean, more detailed than "Love it!" or the like). And oddly enough, I also got a review on a much older fic, apparently from someone who came across my writing journal through one of my cross-postings--but not only did she not comment on the fic I'd actually posted, she would have had to do a considerable amount of browsing in my writing journal to find the one she did comment on. But anyone who's actually read this far is probably going ANGELS AND MINISTERS OF GRACE PRESERVE US, ENOUGH WORD VOMIT NO ONE CARES, so I'll stop.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Polished analysis
Given that my data, methods, and in fact entire project are a little different from others' and, in fact, I don't have much in the way of traditional quantitative data...well, or for that matter, I'm not even sure how much I have in the way of traditional qualitative data. Whatever exactly that might be. (Look, I was a lit major, I don't know what I'm doing with these things.)
However, the primary data I did gather that's a little more quantifiable than "Hey look, I have a crush on fictional characters and it totally shows, watch me write about it" was the reviews I received from re-posting/cross-posting previously published fanfics. I did organize all of it into a data sheet that I'd really love to embed, except I don't know how, and probably it got lost in the flood of text when I originally posted it.
So here it is again: a data sheet breaking down the comments I received so they're a little easier to see and quantify. It's also a PDF so I guarantee everyone can view it. Although my commenters don't add up to a large enough pool to be a truly representative sample, the comment breakdown is still interesting--it's immediately obvious that virtually all of my reviewers were female, for instance, which came as no surprise to me. While I suspect the gender ratio varies from fandom to fandom and has also varied over time (I've gotten the impression that the sort of people who wrote fanfiction for fanzines in the pre-internet area were primarily male, for instance), it seems that the bulk of active internet fandom today is female, as are the majority of those who write fanfiction. This seems to hold true even in fandoms that might be seen as appealing to the stereotypical male nerd, such as Doctor Who: it's science fiction, after all, which I believe also began as a male-dominated field. In this case, it may have something to do with the preponderance of female readers in general, although that's pure speculation.
Of course, it's also possible that a decent amount of males also read my fanfics and simply didn't comment, which I'd have no way of discovering, but the fact that more females commented probably says something.
The communities where the commenters found these fics may also be significant, although it's a little more difficult to determine since they didn't all start from the same point; there were only two or three places each to post "The Lost Boy" and "Too Close to the Moon," while "No Splendid Phoenix Wings" had only been previously posted in two locations and could then be posted to six additional communities. However, the majority of comments on that fic came from the communities DWFiction and/or doctorwho, which is where most of the new comments on the longer fics also came from. Perhaps more interesting, the non-fandom-specific communities--those open to fanfics from any fandom or even any kind of fiction--garnered me no new comments, even though they probably have a larger readership; since they're less specific and focused, they also gained me a much less targeted readership.
As for the actual content of the comments, the fact that they were all positive was certainly nice for my ego and my confidence as a writer, although given that the majority of the comments were simple praise (i.e., "Loved it!!!" or "Oooh... Nice!") with nothing specific and nothing resembling negative feedback or criticism, that may say more about the reviewers themselves than about me and my writing. Reviewers who provided specific feedback, even if it didn't necessarily tell me what could use revision, were at least the most satisfying--knowing what you did well is just as useful as knowing what you didn't do well, in just about any field.
However, the primary data I did gather that's a little more quantifiable than "Hey look, I have a crush on fictional characters and it totally shows, watch me write about it" was the reviews I received from re-posting/cross-posting previously published fanfics. I did organize all of it into a data sheet that I'd really love to embed, except I don't know how, and probably it got lost in the flood of text when I originally posted it.
So here it is again: a data sheet breaking down the comments I received so they're a little easier to see and quantify. It's also a PDF so I guarantee everyone can view it. Although my commenters don't add up to a large enough pool to be a truly representative sample, the comment breakdown is still interesting--it's immediately obvious that virtually all of my reviewers were female, for instance, which came as no surprise to me. While I suspect the gender ratio varies from fandom to fandom and has also varied over time (I've gotten the impression that the sort of people who wrote fanfiction for fanzines in the pre-internet area were primarily male, for instance), it seems that the bulk of active internet fandom today is female, as are the majority of those who write fanfiction. This seems to hold true even in fandoms that might be seen as appealing to the stereotypical male nerd, such as Doctor Who: it's science fiction, after all, which I believe also began as a male-dominated field. In this case, it may have something to do with the preponderance of female readers in general, although that's pure speculation.
Of course, it's also possible that a decent amount of males also read my fanfics and simply didn't comment, which I'd have no way of discovering, but the fact that more females commented probably says something.
The communities where the commenters found these fics may also be significant, although it's a little more difficult to determine since they didn't all start from the same point; there were only two or three places each to post "The Lost Boy" and "Too Close to the Moon," while "No Splendid Phoenix Wings" had only been previously posted in two locations and could then be posted to six additional communities. However, the majority of comments on that fic came from the communities DWFiction and/or doctorwho, which is where most of the new comments on the longer fics also came from. Perhaps more interesting, the non-fandom-specific communities--those open to fanfics from any fandom or even any kind of fiction--garnered me no new comments, even though they probably have a larger readership; since they're less specific and focused, they also gained me a much less targeted readership.
As for the actual content of the comments, the fact that they were all positive was certainly nice for my ego and my confidence as a writer, although given that the majority of the comments were simple praise (i.e., "Loved it!!!" or "Oooh... Nice!") with nothing specific and nothing resembling negative feedback or criticism, that may say more about the reviewers themselves than about me and my writing. Reviewers who provided specific feedback, even if it didn't necessarily tell me what could use revision, were at least the most satisfying--knowing what you did well is just as useful as knowing what you didn't do well, in just about any field.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Methodology
The actual methodology that I followed in collecting the data that I did--as presented in my data sheet, primarily--is similar to further research I would plan to do, although my beginning data analysis didn't count any of the ways I moved in fandom more casually during that time period. I spent more time than I should have last night re-reading Cleolinda's Twilight Saga recaps, for instance, which is certainly a fandom-based, fanfiction-related activity but isn't necessarily related to my own writing and review-gathering. For that matter, I probably talk about or read something fandom-related every single day and barely realize it because it's so integrated into my normal daily experiences.
1) Site--Where did you conduct your research? Why? Because my project was an autoethnography that focused on my own experience as a writer of fanfiction, I didn't limit myself only to one website (although I did carry out most of my interactions within the extremely broad confines of the blog host Livejournal); instead I looked at how my work was received across various fan communities at varying levels of specificity.
2) Participants--Who did you study in your project? Why? That's an easy one: myself, and my own experiences as a fanfic writer and fandom participant. At the same time, though, I had to look at others since fandom is, by definition, a community experience, so I was studying my interactions with others as well.
3) Self--What role did you play in your site? In some ways, I was the site, just like I was the subject of study. I tracked my experience as I wrote and edited fanfiction (well...at least that was always the intention) and as I received reviews on it when I posted it in different places.
4) Data--What kinds of data did you collect? How did you collect it? For the most part, my data centered on the comments and reviews I received; I organized and analyzed them by determining the the gender of the commenter and where she (because usually it was a she) found my fic in the first place.
5) Analysis--How did you analyze your data? As described above, although I didn't carry it nearly as far as I'd like to; looking at how my fics seemed to garner certain kinds of attention would be good, and while I did sort the comments by gender and community to some extent, I didn't do much in the way of drawing conclusions from that data...aside from the fact that the overwhelming majority of commenters were female, which was no surprise, since the areas of fandom that I frequent tend to be predominantly female anyway. For that matter, the areas of fandom that have the most fanfiction, fanart, etc. tend to be populated largely by females anyway.
6) Tradition(s)--What major research tradition(s) did you draw upon to conduct your study? I really had no idea, before I did some preliminary research for my extremely preliminary literature review, that fanfiction and fandom in general had been studied so extensively. Rebecca Black is one of the most important academic figures in the fanfiction discussion, and Henry Jenkins is a major figure in academic discussions of fandom, although the traditions I drew from more tended to be the insider traditions of fandom and fanfiction itself.
1) Site--Where did you conduct your research? Why? Because my project was an autoethnography that focused on my own experience as a writer of fanfiction, I didn't limit myself only to one website (although I did carry out most of my interactions within the extremely broad confines of the blog host Livejournal); instead I looked at how my work was received across various fan communities at varying levels of specificity.
2) Participants--Who did you study in your project? Why? That's an easy one: myself, and my own experiences as a fanfic writer and fandom participant. At the same time, though, I had to look at others since fandom is, by definition, a community experience, so I was studying my interactions with others as well.
3) Self--What role did you play in your site? In some ways, I was the site, just like I was the subject of study. I tracked my experience as I wrote and edited fanfiction (well...at least that was always the intention) and as I received reviews on it when I posted it in different places.
4) Data--What kinds of data did you collect? How did you collect it? For the most part, my data centered on the comments and reviews I received; I organized and analyzed them by determining the the gender of the commenter and where she (because usually it was a she) found my fic in the first place.
5) Analysis--How did you analyze your data? As described above, although I didn't carry it nearly as far as I'd like to; looking at how my fics seemed to garner certain kinds of attention would be good, and while I did sort the comments by gender and community to some extent, I didn't do much in the way of drawing conclusions from that data...aside from the fact that the overwhelming majority of commenters were female, which was no surprise, since the areas of fandom that I frequent tend to be predominantly female anyway. For that matter, the areas of fandom that have the most fanfiction, fanart, etc. tend to be populated largely by females anyway.
6) Tradition(s)--What major research tradition(s) did you draw upon to conduct your study? I really had no idea, before I did some preliminary research for my extremely preliminary literature review, that fanfiction and fandom in general had been studied so extensively. Rebecca Black is one of the most important academic figures in the fanfiction discussion, and Henry Jenkins is a major figure in academic discussions of fandom, although the traditions I drew from more tended to be the insider traditions of fandom and fanfiction itself.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Preliminary synthesis of related research
Maybe unfortunately for my purposes, fanfiction has been studied far more extensively than I'd realized, at least from what appear to me to be outsider perspectives. The sources I examine--as well as the overall focus of my project, I guess--will need to be narrowed and focused more closely, especially because there is such a wealth of research on this topic, enough to get fairly overwhelming. One quick search of the library's database of journal articles turned up some 85 articles, for instance, many of which looked at least somewhat relevant--and adding some existing resources from a previous class (ENGl 476) and other articles I've come across, I'll have a considerable amount of material to go through.
So in the interests of situating myself in this conversation, I guess I'll just post the list of possible resources, for now--it's a long list, like I said, so there's no analysis right now, but it should give some idea of what's out there for me to work with. I'm also thinking of turning this into a paper for PacRim, given the emphasis on third space and intertextuality.
Black, Rebecca. "Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction."
Thomas, Angela. "Blurring and Breaking Through the Boundaries of Narrative, Literacy, and Identity in Adolescent Fan Fiction."
Other possible sources from our book:
Hammer, Jessica. "Agency and Authority in Role-Playing 'Texts'"
Knobel, Michele and Colin Lankshear. "Online Memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production"
Alvermann article, and study on two girls writing fanfic cited in there
Transformative Works and Cultures: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc (may also look at other sites by the Organization for Transformative Works, like Vidding History and Fanlore)
Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition practices of English-language learners in an online fanfiction community. By: Black, Rebecca W.. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Oct2005, Vol. 49 Issue 2, p118-128, 11p; DOI: 10.1598/JAAL.49.2.4; (AN 18508925)
full text
The Slash Fanfiction Connection to Bi Men. By: Davies, Raven. Journal of Bisexuality, 2005, Vol. 5 Issue 2/3, p195-202, 7p; (AN 19108668)
Limit Play: Fan Authorship between Source Text, Intertext, and Context. By: Stein, Louisa; Busse, Kristina. Popular Communication, Oct-Dec2009, Vol. 7 Issue 4, p192-207, 16p; DOI: 10.1080/15405700903177545; (AN 44620499)
When Harry Met Bella. By: Burns, Elizabeth; Webber, Carlie. School Library Journal, Aug2009, Vol. 55 Issue 8, p26-29, 4p, 1 color; (AN 43698156)
Should Fan Fiction Be Free? By: DE KOSNIK, ABIGAIL. Cinema Journal, Summer2009, Vol. 48 Issue 4, p118-124, 7p; (AN 44227396)
USING SOCIAL NORMS TO REGULATE FAN FICTION AND REMIX CULTURE. By: Hetcher, Steven A.. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Jun2009, Vol. 157 Issue 6, p1869-1935, 67p; (AN 43801509) (full text)
Slashing the Fiction of Queer Theory: Slash Fiction, Queer Reading, and Transgressing the Boundaries of Screen Studies, Representations, and Audiences. By: Dhaenens, Frederik; Van Bauwel, Sofie; Biltereyst, Daniel. Journal of Communication Inquiry, Oct2008, Vol. 32 Issue 4, p335-347, 13p; (AN 34151961)
Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. By: Hills, Matt. Popular Communication, Oct-Dec2008, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p262-263, 2p; DOI: 10.1080/15405700802240451; (AN 34741416)
Selections from Dreamsongs: Fan Fiction and SciFi from Martin's Early Years.
Stories of Fantasy, Horror/Sci-Fi, and a Man Called Tuf.
Wild Cards and More Stories from Martin's Later Years. By: Lord, Douglas C. Library Journal, 4/1/2008, Vol. 133 Issue 6, p120-121, 2p; (AN 31574270)
Everyone's a Superhero: A Cultural Theory of "Mary Sue" Fan Fiction as Fair Use. By: Chander, Anupam; Sunder, Madhavi. California Law Review, Apr2007, Vol. 95 Issue 2, p597-626, 30p; (AN 24806545)
The Fan Fiction Phenomena. By: Young, Cathy. Reason, Feb2007, Vol. 38 Issue 9, p14-15, 2p; (AN 23632753) http://reason.com/archives/2007/01/30/the-fan-fiction-phenomena
Fan fiction online: Engagement, critical response and affective play through writing. By: Thomas, Angela. Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, Oct2006, Vol. 29 Issue 3, p226-239, 14p; (AN 22317451)
Rewriting the Rules of Fiction. By: JURGENSEN, JOHN. Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition, 9/16/2006, Vol. 248 Issue 65, pP1-P4, 2p, 1 chart, 1 color; (AN 22362650)
Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenom. By: MacDonald, Marianne. Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Jan/Feb2006, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p28-30, 3p; (AN 19362052)
Filling the Gaps: What's Happening in the World of Fan Fiction. By: Collins, Tara. Library Media Connection, Jan2006, Vol. 24 Issue 4, p36-38, 3p; (AN 19363573)
Decoding Desire: From Kirk and Spock to K/S1. By: Woledge, Elizabeth. Social Semiotics, Aug2005, Vol. 15 Issue 2, p235-250, 16p; DOI: 10.1080/10350330500154857; (AN 17926969)
Spike, sex and subtext. By: Williamson, Milly. European Journal of Cultural Studies, Aug2005, Vol. 8 Issue 3, p289-311, 23p; DOI: 10.1177/1367549405054863; (AN 18033365)
Slashing the Romance Narrative. By: Kustritz, Anne. Journal of American Culture, Sep2003, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p371-384, 14p; DOI: 10.1111/1542-734X.00098; (AN 10351834)
Fanfic: Is It Right to Write? By: Razer, Helen. World Press Review, Mar2004, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p39-39, 1p, 1 bw; (AN 12384932)
Resistance Re-Examined: Gender, Fan Practices, and Science Fiction Television. By: Scodari, Christine. Popular Communication, 2003, Vol. 1 Issue 2, p111, 20p; (AN 9771550)
Confronting Enterprise Slash Fan Fiction. By: Lee, Kylie. Extrapolation (University of Texas at Brownsville), Spring2003, Vol. 44 Issue 1, p69, 14p; (AN 9895643)
CREATING A POCKET UNIVERSE: 'SHIPPERS,' FAN FICTION, AND THE X-FILES ONLINE. By: Scodari, Christine; Felder, Jenna L. Communication Studies, Fall2000, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p238, 20p; (AN 4094240)
Black, Rebecca. Online Fanfiction: What Technology and Popular Culture Can Teach Us About Writing and Literacy Instruction. New Horizons for Learning, March 2005. http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/black.htm
Black, Rebecca. Language, Culture, and Identity in Online Fanfiction. E-Learning. Vol. 3.2, 2006.
"John Rogers on fanfic: re: Leverage." http://cerusee.livejournal.com/235907.html
"Transmedia: a brave new world in entertainment marketing." http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-henry-jenkins22-2009nov22,0,4168038.story
I also remember posting two good links to Twitter for future reference...but because Twitter doesn't have a good search function, I can't find them. >_<
So in the interests of situating myself in this conversation, I guess I'll just post the list of possible resources, for now--it's a long list, like I said, so there's no analysis right now, but it should give some idea of what's out there for me to work with. I'm also thinking of turning this into a paper for PacRim, given the emphasis on third space and intertextuality.
Black, Rebecca. "Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction."
Thomas, Angela. "Blurring and Breaking Through the Boundaries of Narrative, Literacy, and Identity in Adolescent Fan Fiction."
Other possible sources from our book:
Hammer, Jessica. "Agency and Authority in Role-Playing 'Texts'"
Knobel, Michele and Colin Lankshear. "Online Memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production"
Alvermann article, and study on two girls writing fanfic cited in there
Transformative Works and Cultures: http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc (may also look at other sites by the Organization for Transformative Works, like Vidding History and Fanlore)
Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition practices of English-language learners in an online fanfiction community. By: Black, Rebecca W.. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Oct2005, Vol. 49 Issue 2, p118-128, 11p; DOI: 10.1598/JAAL.49.2.4; (AN 18508925)
full text
The Slash Fanfiction Connection to Bi Men. By: Davies, Raven. Journal of Bisexuality, 2005, Vol. 5 Issue 2/3, p195-202, 7p; (AN 19108668)
Limit Play: Fan Authorship between Source Text, Intertext, and Context. By: Stein, Louisa; Busse, Kristina. Popular Communication, Oct-Dec2009, Vol. 7 Issue 4, p192-207, 16p; DOI: 10.1080/15405700903177545; (AN 44620499)
When Harry Met Bella. By: Burns, Elizabeth; Webber, Carlie. School Library Journal, Aug2009, Vol. 55 Issue 8, p26-29, 4p, 1 color; (AN 43698156)
Should Fan Fiction Be Free? By: DE KOSNIK, ABIGAIL. Cinema Journal, Summer2009, Vol. 48 Issue 4, p118-124, 7p; (AN 44227396)
USING SOCIAL NORMS TO REGULATE FAN FICTION AND REMIX CULTURE. By: Hetcher, Steven A.. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Jun2009, Vol. 157 Issue 6, p1869-1935, 67p; (AN 43801509) (full text)
Slashing the Fiction of Queer Theory: Slash Fiction, Queer Reading, and Transgressing the Boundaries of Screen Studies, Representations, and Audiences. By: Dhaenens, Frederik; Van Bauwel, Sofie; Biltereyst, Daniel. Journal of Communication Inquiry, Oct2008, Vol. 32 Issue 4, p335-347, 13p; (AN 34151961)
Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. By: Hills, Matt. Popular Communication, Oct-Dec2008, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p262-263, 2p; DOI: 10.1080/15405700802240451; (AN 34741416)
Selections from Dreamsongs: Fan Fiction and SciFi from Martin's Early Years.
Stories of Fantasy, Horror/Sci-Fi, and a Man Called Tuf.
Wild Cards and More Stories from Martin's Later Years. By: Lord, Douglas C. Library Journal, 4/1/2008, Vol. 133 Issue 6, p120-121, 2p; (AN 31574270)
Everyone's a Superhero: A Cultural Theory of "Mary Sue" Fan Fiction as Fair Use. By: Chander, Anupam; Sunder, Madhavi. California Law Review, Apr2007, Vol. 95 Issue 2, p597-626, 30p; (AN 24806545)
The Fan Fiction Phenomena. By: Young, Cathy. Reason, Feb2007, Vol. 38 Issue 9, p14-15, 2p; (AN 23632753) http://reason.com/archives/2007/01/30/the-fan-fiction-phenomena
Fan fiction online: Engagement, critical response and affective play through writing. By: Thomas, Angela. Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, Oct2006, Vol. 29 Issue 3, p226-239, 14p; (AN 22317451)
Rewriting the Rules of Fiction. By: JURGENSEN, JOHN. Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition, 9/16/2006, Vol. 248 Issue 65, pP1-P4, 2p, 1 chart, 1 color; (AN 22362650)
Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenom. By: MacDonald, Marianne. Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Jan/Feb2006, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p28-30, 3p; (AN 19362052)
Filling the Gaps: What's Happening in the World of Fan Fiction. By: Collins, Tara. Library Media Connection, Jan2006, Vol. 24 Issue 4, p36-38, 3p; (AN 19363573)
Decoding Desire: From Kirk and Spock to K/S1. By: Woledge, Elizabeth. Social Semiotics, Aug2005, Vol. 15 Issue 2, p235-250, 16p; DOI: 10.1080/10350330500154857; (AN 17926969)
Spike, sex and subtext. By: Williamson, Milly. European Journal of Cultural Studies, Aug2005, Vol. 8 Issue 3, p289-311, 23p; DOI: 10.1177/1367549405054863; (AN 18033365)
Slashing the Romance Narrative. By: Kustritz, Anne. Journal of American Culture, Sep2003, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p371-384, 14p; DOI: 10.1111/1542-734X.00098; (AN 10351834)
Fanfic: Is It Right to Write? By: Razer, Helen. World Press Review, Mar2004, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p39-39, 1p, 1 bw; (AN 12384932)
Resistance Re-Examined: Gender, Fan Practices, and Science Fiction Television. By: Scodari, Christine. Popular Communication, 2003, Vol. 1 Issue 2, p111, 20p; (AN 9771550)
Confronting Enterprise Slash Fan Fiction. By: Lee, Kylie. Extrapolation (University of Texas at Brownsville), Spring2003, Vol. 44 Issue 1, p69, 14p; (AN 9895643)
CREATING A POCKET UNIVERSE: 'SHIPPERS,' FAN FICTION, AND THE X-FILES ONLINE. By: Scodari, Christine; Felder, Jenna L. Communication Studies, Fall2000, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p238, 20p; (AN 4094240)
Black, Rebecca. Online Fanfiction: What Technology and Popular Culture Can Teach Us About Writing and Literacy Instruction. New Horizons for Learning, March 2005. http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/black.htm
Black, Rebecca. Language, Culture, and Identity in Online Fanfiction. E-Learning. Vol. 3.2, 2006.
"John Rogers on fanfic: re: Leverage." http://cerusee.livejournal.com/235907.html
"Transmedia: a brave new world in entertainment marketing." http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-henry-jenkins22-2009nov22,0,4168038.story
I also remember posting two good links to Twitter for future reference...but because Twitter doesn't have a good search function, I can't find them. >_<
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