{"id":39,"date":"2007-06-19T15:16:56","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T22:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/specfic.philsites.net\/2007\/06\/19\/why-fanfiction-isnt-encouraged-on-the-philippine-sf-and-f-ml\/"},"modified":"2007-06-19T16:59:27","modified_gmt":"2007-06-19T23:59:28","slug":"why-fanfiction-isnt-encouraged-on-the-philippine-sf-and-f-ml","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/2007\/06\/19\/why-fanfiction-isnt-encouraged-on-the-philippine-sf-and-f-ml\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Fanfiction Isn’t Encouraged on the Philippine SF and F Writers ML"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often find myself seriously considering writing about fanfiction in this blog. These days, I read just about the same amount of fanfiction as original fiction (by which i mean precious little<\/em>) and from time to time I feel like sharing my thoughts on a particularly lovely piece of fanwriting.<\/p>\n

But I do have some difficulty relating fanfiction to the themes I wish to discuss here, or on the Phil SF and F Writers ML<\/a>. Certainly there are some spectacular fanfiction writers who are Filipino, but they usually write in English… or are not so keen on being identified as Filipino, for a variety of reasons. So talking about them on a blog called “Philippine Speculative Fiction” may not be met with much enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Finally, today, I came across a side of fanfiction that I could talk about. While contemplating the flash fiction contest<\/a> (or, to be more precise, my unsurprising lack of ideas for good flash fiction), I realized something: There’s actually tons of great flash fiction on the Web – they’re called drabbles<\/a>. They just stay under the radar because they’re done for and within fandom.<\/p>\n

Some of them are quite standalone; even if you don’t know the original story or the characters involved, you’re still able to appreciate the cleverness and artistry of their writers. The essential criteria for “good” flash fiction are retained – brevity, clarity, cohesion and impact. However, such works don’t get circulated to non-fanfic readers – or, rather, it isn’t often that it occurs to fanfic readers to share them with non-fanfic readers, so that they can be analyzed and\/or appreciated as fiction, not as tribute pieces.<\/p>\n

And even if fanfic readers do decide to share them, it is rare that non-fanfic readers will want to read them. They’re still counted as “fanfiction,” after all, and there is still a stigma attached to fanfiction writing. Several, I should say. Call them misconceptions, call them myths, call them opinion or fact, but they’re firmly stuck to fanwork like an evil twin. These are just some of them:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Fanfiction writers are not and can not be as good as “serious” writers, because they cannot think outside preset frameworks made by writers who have already been published.<\/li>\n
  2. Fanfiction makes for poor writing practice, as even less-than-passable writing receives a generous amount of praise, especially if it features a popular romantic pairing or theme.<\/li>\n
  3. 3. Fanfiction takes away the focus and creative energy you should be applying to writing original fiction. In the time that you spent writing five drabbles, you could have written a perfectly good original short story.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I’m not going to comment on any of these things at the moment. But for the record, none<\/em> of the above applies to why fanfiction isn’t encouraged on the Phil SF and F Writers ML<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The Philippine Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Mailing List<\/a> was originally founded to become an avenue for speculative fiction writers to share their work. Now I firmly believe fanfiction is a form of speculative writing… and if there are any objections, I’d love to hear them out. Fanfiction speculates<\/em> on an existing production – a book, a TV show, a musical group, what-have-you. “Canon” information for that production exists, and writers are encouraged to adhere to it, similar to how original fiction writers are often held up to “realist” standards… but every writer is free to go beyond these standards. There are limitless possibilities to what you can do with characters, objects and scenarios that have already been made. This is freedom of thought no matter which way you look at it.<\/p>\n

    So why is fanfiction not encouraged on the Phil SF and F Writers ML<\/a>? For one simple reason: nearly every existing piece of fanfiction already has a community that can take it in, archive it, promote it, and treasure it. If a fanwriter hasn’t found a community for her or his fanfic, she or he has every power to create one… or perhaps all the writer has to do is wait, because one will be created eventually.<\/p>\n

    Fandom is a whole other world that has artists, analysts, reviewers, writers, publishers and editors. The fans judge and support their own. There are communities for everything – from pairings, to alternate pairings, to alternate realities for those alternate pairings – even for people who rabidly dislike pairings, alternate pairings, and alternate realities for those alternate pairings!<\/p>\n

    There are even existing communities for Pinoy fanfiction. The LJ community pinoyfik<\/a> is the first thing to come to mind, followed by the Pinoy Anime Fanfiction ML<\/a>. If there are more, I’d love to know about them – I should be adding them to the links list during the next (long-delayed!) blogroll update.<\/p>\n

    See, there are communities for pretty much every permutation of fanstuff. But what about original Filipino speculative fiction? Who takes it in, who encourages it? It’s only recently that our awesome Pinoy publishers are turning out works of original fiction that are exclusively speculative. We’re still exploring avenues to publish more fiction written by Filipinos, and we’re steadily learning that not every story we tell has to stick to “canon”!<\/p>\n

    I’m not saying I aim to create such a community, however. All by myself, I can be little more than a small voice cheering the industry on. As well as every Pinoy spec fic writer who turns out something full of imagination and soul, and finds the courage to share it with the rest of the world. And as many Pinoy literary enthusiasts as I can find who attain recognition, or seek to attain recognition for Filipino-written speculative fiction as a whole.<\/p>\n

    I’m sure that fanfiction will find its way into some of my future posts, and I’m sure it’ll be relevant to the general subject of speculative fiction. After all, those of us who started off as book addicts and ended up as writers must have had our minds opened in that manner – we must’ve asked ourselves “what if” this book ended another way, “what if” these characters were in a different setting, “what if” this story was told from another point of view, and much more. We must all have wanted to build upon existing works of fiction – but not all of us have found it so easy to act on that desire.<\/p>\n

    Case in point: every person who was ever addicted to the Sherlock Holmes<\/a> books growing up has written\/has always wanted to write Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. Admit it. Every Holmesian has fantasized about going off on Mary Sue\/Marty Stu-ish adventures with the great detective and the good Doctor who is always by his side. Or perhaps about writing the next great Sherlock Holmes case, endowed with the most clever and intricate plot never devised!<\/p>\n

    But perhaps some of us thought it would be a sin to even think about writing such things – after all, it takes considerable skill to pull off the right voice for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal characters, who are rock-solid in the manner of true literary icons. Still, would you rather your adventures remain undocumented? Even if it were not a Mary Sue or a Marty Stu, would you not want to express your story ideas, even as a private form of tribute to the master storyteller who was so important to your literary upbringing?<\/p>\n

    I may not encourage posting fanfiction on the Phil SF and F Writers ML<\/a>, but I’m certainly not against writing and sharing it. Taking my cue from a friend who actually writes exceptional Sherlock Holmes fanfiction, and should write more, I’m telling every other Holmesian, Pinoy or otherwise: If you’ve never ficced for this series, you should fic for it now. A drabble would do!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I often find myself seriously considering writing about fanfiction in this blog. These days, I read just about the same amount of fanfiction as original fiction (by which i mean precious little) and from time to time I feel like sharing my thoughts on a particularly lovely piece of fanwriting. But I do have some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-transparent-header":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philsites.net\/specfic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}