As Others See Us: Fanfic in the Media

The story of the week was that Andy Cohen, host of Bravo's Watch What Happens Live, thrust some Voldemort/Harry into Ralph Fiennes's hands for him to read. Because fans doing this isn't bad enough. (For a really stupid recap, see this bit on Huffington Post.)

On the Wall Street Journal's Bookshelf blog, Tom Shippey, in a review of Michael Saler's As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality, termed Tolkien's Middle-earth "a playful site," with much online fan fiction, and a great deal of dressing up.

On Slate, Tara Ariano wrote How good is FX’s Justified, returning for its third season tonight? Some TV series inspire conventions, cosplay, and speculative fiction from their fans. Justified may be the first show to inspire fanfic from its creator. (That's Elmore Leonard, folks!)

( Juno, Clan of the Cave Bear, Reading Improves Literacy )

( The Walking Dead, LiveJournal, Downton Abbey )

Finally, from the Department of Can't Parse This, Bill Gee wrote “Fan Fiction” has developed as a successful sub-genre of popular entertainment brands, which has generated massive profits in merchandising and other peripheral revenue sources.

The Telegraph's Nick Britten quoted Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch on the fan response to the show's Holmes-Watson dynamic: "The problem is, [the jokes] fuel the fantasy of the few into flames for the many. People presume that’s what it is, but it’s not." The actor, 35, said there was a huge amount of "weird fan fiction" on the internet, where people "write stories and do manga cartoons of what they think you get up to behind closed doors. Some of it’s funny. Some of it’s full-on sex." The comment count is at 133… Also regarding Sherlock, The Yorker's Catherine Munn wrote there's no question that writer Steven Moffat is on top form. He wriggles out of last series' cliffhanger in such a gloriously devious way that even the most outlandish of fanfiction authors would have groaned. Then applauded.

( Downton Abbey, Yuletide, Copyright, Rick Santorum )

In the Weekly Volcano (Tacoma/Olympia), Kristin Kendle interviewed local author Marissa Meyer, whose first writing outlet was Sailor Moon fan fiction.

The Evansville Courier & Press announced an upcoming Fanfiction Writing Workshop at a local library.

Finally, Malene Arpe of The Star (Toronto) tried to be cute by making up fandom names of writers of Bilbo!sex; only one's actually in use, afaict, but she writes mostly Harry Potter, so.

Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory mentioned fanfic in passing in an article on primetime incest.

In the San Antonio Express-News, René A. Guzman wrote that in 1967 linguist Dorothy Jones Heydt crafted a Vulcan language for Trekkies to use in fan fiction. (Wikipedia agrees, so it must be true.)

In Gothamist, Jen Carlson wondered whether anyone could spin a current NYU prof-James Franco thing into a James Franco Erotic Fan Fic piece, where James sleeps with a cougar professor for good grades or something... more original?

Finally, A Royal Gazette (Bermuda) article by Nadia Arandjelovic about a teen writing contest winner reported that she posts many of her short stories on website www.fanfiction.net to get input from other readers about her work.

TV station websites across the US featured a piece by Henry Hanks for CNN about a The Middleman/Doctor Who crossover written by Middleman creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who told Hanks Writing this fanfic seemed to be a good way to say thanks to fans who'd watched The Middleman during its run as a series on ABC Family.

In a Washington Post article by Jessica Goldstein, comedian Elaine Carroll referred to her character Very Mary-Kate (Olsen) as kind of ‘fan fiction’ […] we don’t really know who she actually is. . . . So I filled in the blanks of her world.”

Liz Langley wrote a piece on RPS for Sexis.

( V.C. Andrews, Twilight, Lindsay Lohan )

Finally, Chicago's WBEZ's Claire Zulkey shared Cleatus the FOX NFL Robot fan fiction.

In a New York Times obituary, Margalit Fox wrote that Anne McCaffrey's Pern books sold millions of copies and have inspired a cornucopia of Internet fan fiction and a spate of scholarly studies.

tehomet pointed me to a Mathilda Gregory article in The Guardian Fanfiction can be an eloquent tribute – it deserves more respect.

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper reviewed My Week With Marylin for MSNBC: This particular week took place in London in 1956, and we come at it through the experience of Colin Clark, who wrote two books based on the one week he spent as an entry-level worker on Monroe's film, "The Prince and the Showgirl." Clark's experience is so pulled-from-a-fan's-dream that it's reminiscent of those fan fiction stories featuring characters dubbed "Mary Sues," in which the writer suddenly appears on the Star Trek Enterprise or something and saves the day.

( Twilight, Nanowrimo )

In the Ventura County Reporter, Matthew Singer wrote, of The Muppets, the film plays like fan fiction: It’s about a Muppet-loving goofball helping bring the crew back to relevancy.

Finally, in The Yorker, Lois Cameron wrote that if you need her between now and the [Downtown Abbey] Christmas special, I’ll be the one scouring the internet for a screencap of Mary’s “Seriously?” face and writing some truly terrible Sybil/Branson fanfiction. And I mean terrible.

The return of the character Becky to Supernatural sparked refs in a number of publications this past week, the most mainstream of which was TV Guide's website, where Tina Charles described Becky as having written erotic fan fiction based on the Supernatural series of books.

On Radio Prague's website, Jan Velinger interviewed (but didn't provide the name of) "the head of the festival Aleš Rumpel," who talked a little about Slash – which is fan-fiction or fan productions on Star Trek or Kirk and Spock or other popular narratives such as Sherlock Holmes and Watson where fans rewrite the narrative along queer lines.

In the Colorado Springs Independent, MaryAnn Johanson wrote If Samwise Gamgee, after returning home from the War of the Ring, had a prophetic dream about the mythology of ancient Greece and decided to write some fan fiction about it, and then Vogue magazine's most outré photographers did a huge photo spread based on that, it could begin to explain how [the film] Immortals came into existence.

( US Politics, NCIS, Captain Nemo, Bones )

Finally, on New York Magazine's Vulture blog, Megan Reynolds referred to the ending of Felicity as five episodes of speculative fan fiction filmed.

Let's start with a handful of Shakespeare refs. Los Angeles Times's Charlotte Stoudt wrote that Hit men Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield would relish their Elizabethan counterparts in “Pulp Shakespeare,” the droll exercise in fan fiction now at Theatre Asylum. In a review of "Anonymous" for San Francisco Examiner, Rossiter Drake wrote Whether it will be afforded the same respect that greeted “Shakespeare in Love” — another Bard-obsessed bit of fan fiction — is anybody’s guess, though “Anonymous” is a more substantial achievement. Philadelphia Enquirer's Carrie Rickey disagreed: Shakespeare in Love is a spirited work of fan fiction. Anonymous, however, is a dispiriting dropping of a boo-bird.

( Regarding Harry Potter )

On The Washington Post's ComPost blog, Alexandra Petri wrote that the thought occurs to us every so often that replacing the entire Opinions section with fair-to-moderately well-written Twilight fanfiction would probably get more hits. But we don’t despair. We work harder. (With example).

On Stuff, Henry Cooke provided an outsider look at fan fiction.

( Lev Grossman, The Rum Diary, more Harry Potter, Hunger Games )

Dan Devine asked Is there a rich vein of "Carmelo and LeBron as alternate reality/wine-cooler-based tag team" fan fiction that you guys have been hiding from me? on Yahoo! Sports.

In The Guardian, Sam Leith wrote The explosion of fan fiction – much of it by children and young teens – is a vitally encouraging instance of the way creative reading and creative writing can become the centre of an online community.

Finally, also in The Guardian, Tim Jonze interviewed the duo Justice: Gaspard [Augé] takes out his phone and shows me a manga-style cartoon of Xavier [de Rosnay] straddling him. It's been made by a Justice fan. Justice fans, it transpires, are fond of writing slash fiction, or making slash art, about the pair and posting it on Tumblr blogs. It goes on, and is worth the click-through.

On New York Magazine's Vulture blog, in a bit about Gossip Girl that I didn't begin to understand, Kara Landsman wrote "Also, I'm so pleased that next week we learn that Dan has been writing fan fiction about the show this whole time. And, as in all good fan fiction, Nate is gay. Plus 50." —TRUMPETSTRUMPET

Seton Hall Univerity's Heidi Trotta, in a piece about a class on storytelling using modern techniques and media, wrote New forms of storytelling are emerging such as fan fiction, interactive comics, online games, personal blogging and digital stories.

( Harry Potter, Felicia Day, My Chemical Romance, True Blood )

In The Province, Peter Darbyshire detailed the progression toward a recent movie deal: Some redditors added their own creative contributions, writing fan fiction of Prufrock451's entries, creating faux movie posters and mashup movie trailers for an imaginary film, and even designing games based on the concept.

Regarding Occupy Wall Street, The Crimson White's Michael Patrick (University of Alabama) wondered Are these people really fighting social injustice or are they just trying to create Arabic revolution fan fiction?

Finally, Perez Hilton wrote that Chad Michael Murray has been dabbling in his own fan-fiction.

In The Atlanic, Noah Berlatsky wrote that what [comic-book-buying] fanboys want to read is corporate fan fiction about ritually rutting with the trademarked icons of their youth.

The Christian Science Monitor's Jina Moore and Whitney Eulich wrote that Popular series have always inspired "fan fiction," in which story buffs spin new tales about their favorite characters.

New York Observer's Kat Stoeffel thinks The Puppy Diaries is like New York Times fan fiction.

( Sisterhood Everlasting, teen writes, Abraham Lincoln, Star Wars )

( Fanfic contests, 2 Broke Girls, SPN in the classroom, Hunger Games, Happy Feet )

Olivia Hatalsky wrote about the Purple Dove Project for the Times Union (Albany): Do you like to write fiction? Do you have a favorite band, or movie? If you like to combine both of these things into fanfiction, or any other fan created work, The Purple Dove Project may be for you.

Finally, in the "we don't know what this word means" department, we have two contestants this week: first, the staff of Seattlest has asked readers to send in links to their favorite Serge Gainsbourg song, along with an explanation of its significance. You could simply like the way it sounds, or you could tell us about the person or memory that the song is connected with (nothing too steamy, please. If we wanted slash/fic, we'd go to Nerve.com). And, on Wonkette, Ken Layne wrote In the great Ren Faire of U.S. public life, there is no document more important than Lord of the Rings and its various slash-fic spinoffs such as The Hobbit and The Twin Towers and HR Pufnstuf. In these majestic texts, we find all that defines America, or "Middle Earth." Here are some of the beloved nightmare-fuel creatures of the United States and their real-life LoTR counterparts that helped create the stinking sulfur toilet where we all live today ("Mordor").

BBC News shared that a study on orphaned printed material considered a wide variety of printed works including illustrated children's book from the 1920s, travel guides, political pamphlets from the 1960s and 1970s and early "fan fiction" from the 1980s.

Tracy Gold of Business 2 Community covered a recent talk by WGN America Marketing VP Josh Richman and Story Worldwide Creative Director Keith Blanchard on “Rise of the SuperFans": According to Keith, “Every show has its Star Trek geeks.” These SuperFans write fan fiction, create fan music, blog about shows, and have followings of their own. So Story Worldwide and WGN America, says Keith, started by seeking out and engaging those fans.

There were several mentions of a offer on Craigslist of $10 for someone to write Das Racist fanfic; the most prominent was by Maura Johnston, for Village Voice's Sound of the City blog.

In an article for The Oregonian about the My Little Pony fandom which has been picked up by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, Kelly House quoted fan Shaun Scotellaro, who said "People are pumping out stuff left and right -- fan fiction, videos, music."

( Harry Potter, Xena, the Kuala Lumpur drama scene )

Chicago Tribune's Rex Huppke advised a reader who wanted to lower expectations at work to Bring in a wide array of pastries or "fun-size" candy bars each morning, then spend most of your day writing "Mork & Mindy" fan fiction.

Finally, in the San Antonia Express-News, René A. Guzman warned that an upcoming manga mini-con focuses strictly on original manga, so don't bring that “Bleach” fan art or “Naruto” fan fiction.