Musings on Fanfiction
Nov. 29th, 2005 01:51 pmIn 1926, Hugo Gernsback gave name to science fiction (well actually he called it scientifiction but the fans protested and it soon became the name we now know). Almost right away fans started writing their own fics and many of them like Judith Merrill, Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl (who still is writing) became professionals. This trend--fan to pro--is still with us today.
In 1967 "Star Trek" became the first show to have it's fans publish fics inspired by it. One of the early ones was Jacqueling Lichtenberg who, with Kraith, was possibly the first to establish her own AU, complete with a story arc, wherein Kirk, for many reasons, is adopted into Spock's family. Another early writer was Jean Lorrah whose best known Trekfic was "Night of the Twin Moons" where Sarek and Amanda visited a planet ruled by women. Both writers later turned pro as I'm sure other Treklit writers also did.
In those days stories were printed in fanzines that relied on snailmail and waiting for a 'zine could be torture as the Post Awful Monster was known for it's sadistic tendencies and loved to delay, lose or chew up the 'zines. You youngsters are more fortunate. I've seen a new BtVS ep at night and the next day someone's written a story inspired by it. The one drawback is that no fanzine would publish an unfinished story and now there are countless unfinished, abandoned fics out there.
There are so many well-written fics out there where the author displays his/her awesome talents for description, plot and characterization that I wonder how many might eventually turn pro. Today I read a post by
wen_spencer, one of my favorite SF writers, where she talks about writing and one of her points is "Writing is foremost STORYTELLING and if you don't tell a complete story, you're not writing. You're putting words on paper." Unfortunately there's a lot of that in fanfiction too.
In 1967 "Star Trek" became the first show to have it's fans publish fics inspired by it. One of the early ones was Jacqueling Lichtenberg who, with Kraith, was possibly the first to establish her own AU, complete with a story arc, wherein Kirk, for many reasons, is adopted into Spock's family. Another early writer was Jean Lorrah whose best known Trekfic was "Night of the Twin Moons" where Sarek and Amanda visited a planet ruled by women. Both writers later turned pro as I'm sure other Treklit writers also did.
In those days stories were printed in fanzines that relied on snailmail and waiting for a 'zine could be torture as the Post Awful Monster was known for it's sadistic tendencies and loved to delay, lose or chew up the 'zines. You youngsters are more fortunate. I've seen a new BtVS ep at night and the next day someone's written a story inspired by it. The one drawback is that no fanzine would publish an unfinished story and now there are countless unfinished, abandoned fics out there.
There are so many well-written fics out there where the author displays his/her awesome talents for description, plot and characterization that I wonder how many might eventually turn pro. Today I read a post by
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