Posts Tagged ‘Harry Potter’
The interweb brings many things. Free porn, expanding of the general knowledge, new friends, life partners, seeing old programmes and films again….and of course, the fanfic AKA Fan Fiction, or original fiction written by fans of a particular media text.
Ah, the fanfic. Most people know what they are, even if they’ve never read one. Usually (but not exclusively) the work of young female fans, they offer up a myriad of new takes on an existing source. There is a whole world within, full of jargon and conventions. In fact, fan fiction could be recognised as a form of media in its own right.
I myself love a bit of fanfic. As an aspirational writer, taking an exisiting setup and offering one’s own spin on it can be a fun challenge, but pretty much all attempts have been unfinished and later abanadoned – original fiction is my first love. I am unashamed in admitting that to pass otherwise dull days and evenings, I have spent too long hooked on pages of fanfic.
Mostly I see it as simply harmless fun, and often offers me a new perspective on, and greater appreciation of, the source material. I have read Real Person, Literature, Movie and TV Series fictions, all with varying degrees of quality. The most notorious being the slashfic – (gay-themed fan fiction for those not clued-up) AKA the ultimate guilty pleasure. Done right, it makes for some hilarious (and occasionally rather sexy) reading. Done badly….it borders on the truly obscene.
Take any popular-with-the-masses media text, for example Harry Potter, and you will find reams of fan fiction. The creativity of some fans really knows no bounds. Sci-Fi tends to be the most popular subject, but Fantasy is close behind it. Some things however, should be left as they are and never fan-ficked. God only knows how I found it, but once stumbled across a SLASH fic of….Keeping Up Appearances. Yes, I mean the very same show. High Octane Nightmare Fuel (no offence to any of the actors, please!) indeed! If ever there was a “pass me the brain bleach” moment, it was that.
As with any form of media, Fan Fiction has its own set of conventions . I won’t be boring and list them all (partly because I don’t know them all) but the most common ones are:
The “Mary Sue”
A curious convention with a complicated explanation; so this is merely how I understand the term. A Mary Sue or Marty Stu is an original character, most common in fan fiction that is the main protagonist of the story, and is usually depicted as a ridiculously flawed/flawless hero or heroine whom all the existing canon characters relate to. Harry Potter fanfiction is the best (easiest) way to spot the Mary Sue. Usually something along the lines of “Beautiful Brianna Snyder, from Burbank, Cali, is the new girl at Hogwarts….she manages to break many hearts along the way before she finally hooks up with Harry and helps him defeat Voldemort.” There’s a fanfic right there waiting to be written. The other type of Mary Sue would be something like “Hogwarts has a new DADA teacher with a mysterious past.” A sub-form of this is putting oneself in as the lead, another popular convention. I did this twice, once in a piece of A-level coursework (I became a rock band frontman’s boyf. Yeah. I wasn’t getting laid much at either of the times and I was overweight with low self-esteem. Go figure. I’m amazed my teacher didn’t have me sectioned.)
The AU-Fic (Alternate Universe)
A common interpration of fan fiction is the lifting of the characters from the original canon/premise and placing them somewhere totally alien. Most obvious – the High School AU for stuff like Star Trek, Twilight etc. Usually the setting is the author’s own school environment and features their friends plus their desired characters. For example “Trekkie Marnie has a shock when she sees her new science teacher has pointy ears”). I can’t speculate, but I imagine that if you’re expanding on someone else’s creation, in order to produce a decent piece of writing it is probably easier to write in more detail about a setting you are more familiar with?
Catherine Tate parodied this wonderfully when she invited David Tennant to play Lauren Cooper’s screwdriver-toting, Scotch-accented English teacher. The AU is a double-edged sword. I know a Bad Girls fanfic called Aisles, where characters from right across the series have been placed as staff in a fictional supermarket. What appealed to me was the inventive integration of existing canon characters (for example prisoner Nikki Wade [series 1-3] is a close work friend of PO Selena Geeson [series 5-6] when in BG itself, they never crossed paths). And it still works. I don’t read AU-fics that often (I think they miss the point really) but hats off to the writer of this one for a) her good-quality writing, b) her excellent grasp of the characters and c) original setting.
Done well, this offers a completely new spin on the source material. Done badly (insert many High School AU Twilight fics here) it makes a mockery of the material, or just simply is LAME.
See examples of how NOT to do either of the above conventions in quite possibly the worst piece of fanfiction ever written. Read at your own peril.
Real Person Fic: Do’s and Don’ts
You are basically free (within reason) to shape fictional source material to suit your own ends as long as it doesn’t make a mockery of the original creator’s work. When you come to fiction involving people, there’s a different kettle of fish. Slashfiction involving real people, on the most part, is silly fun if you accept it for what it is. As an ex-writer of UNPUBLISHED real-person fic, it is fun to write, but I always remembered my conscience. Some fangirls, though, take it beyond the realms of taste. Death!fics are particulary distasteful – just imagine how you would feel, finding some stranger gleefully writing about your death for their own pleasure? Anything regarding the personal lives (read wives/husbands and kids) of the people involved is a case of knowing a little too much. Not to mention libellous as they are innocent parties. Would you want a stranger writing god-knows-what about your loved ones? An alarmingly common trend is making male celebrities rape victims. Perhaps due to the high proportion of female authors this appeals to the traditionally female need to nurture? I don’t know.
However, the majority of real person fan fiction utilises Mary Sues, usually self-insertion (I know mine did… cringe-worthily so) as these are often the authors fulfilling a fantasy, and mostly, if the test subject is married, their wife or husband is relegated to the Evil Ex/jealous harpy role (not in mine). The Mary Sue angle is in some ways appealing to read, because the Celeb/Joe Bloggs pairing is quite an interesting tale to explore.
I know far too much about this type of fiction really.
Basically, do make it funny and inventive et al. Don’t involve the subject’s family, kill or rape them! Simple.
M-Preg: Male pregnancy….
Exactly as it sounds. For some bizarre reason, some obsessed fans like to impregnate male characters as part of slashfiction, usually as a common result of some impromptu bumfun. I don’t need to go any further… especially when it comes to the ‘inventive’ means writers go about overcoming the biology involving the birth of said character’s baby….yeah. I think that’s all you need to know.
Lemon/PWP/Fluff/Drabbles
Porn Without Plot. Usually appallingly written, full of gratuitous swearing and cringeworthy descriptions of sex acts. For example:
“harry put his 10inch wand inside rons asshole.
“OMG ur sooo tight” moaned Ron.”
Yeah. Facepalm inducing or what?
A drabble is an ultra-short fanfic, usually under 250 words. Often makes use of PWP or Fluff. Fluff , if you’re feeling uncharitable, is saccharine-sweet scenes of love between the characters, usually without sex. Fluff is actually quite effective if well-written as it does create a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but done badly just appears full of terrible cliches.
“OOC”/Character Derailment. Also known as the ‘Draco In Leather Pants’/'Death Eater Ron’ convention
The biggest freedom of making your own spin on existing material is playing with the characters, which yields itneresting results, and in some cases, fans like to completely reverse their personalities. Most common in Harry Potter fan fiction again, hence the given names for these. “Draco In Leather Pants” implies a baddie in the original source material has been turned into a goodie/desirable in fan fic. Especially common with Draco Malfoy from the HP series, again, hence the name. “Death Eater Ron” is obviously the opposite: a good character gone bad. Whilst this isn’t the worst crime against fiction you can commit, a lot of character changing is completely irrational. Another classic example is a female protagonist turning into the jealous, mean-spirited harpy once the “pairing” get it together. For example, say with a Torchwood-based fic - “Jack starts sleeping with Owen. Tosh doesn’t’ like this and feeds them to a couple of Weevils.” Or our old favourites: “Harry and Ron discover their undying love in sixth year, upsetting Hermione who swears revenge.”
These are just some of the many conventions that are used in generating fanfiction. These are just my opinions on how they usually manifest themselves. Some writers are more competent than others so I cannot produce a definitive argument whether it is good or bad. I arrive at the same hypothesis I began with. It depends on the content and./or the writer. Some things shouldn’t be fanfictionalised at all, whilst others should never go down the sex route. Period. I have read attempts at depicting cars having sex before. Talk about surreal. Real people is acceptable as long as it is in reasonable taste. Yes, even slash. It is noted that the writing of, and to a lesser extent, reading fan fiction is seen as bordering on obsessive-fan territory, but really, it isn’t harming anyone. If you or your work is in the public eye, be flattered that people appreciate you enough to be creative. Creativity is always good. However I always maintain that there should be a limit. I have come across stories regarding rock band members children dying of cancer before now – nothing can justify this kind of ‘story’. It is invasive, immoral and it makes you wonder whether the writers of such material are wired in the head correctly. Put it this way – should any of my work get out there or get published, I’d be quite happy to read fan fiction, seeing how others interpret my own invention is part of the craft of creating original fiction, surely? As long as they don’t lace it with questionable morals that is. Or produce badly-written pastiche that is so insulting to the original material.
Chronophobia is the fear of time, or more specifically, time passing. Apparently it is most prevalent in prison inamtes with long sentences. Basically, it generates feelings of fear, anxiety and short breathing at the prospect of time passing. Otherwise known as going ‘stir-crazy’. I think I developed a slight case of this in the summer of 2008, after a seedy event in my life cause me to have a Getrude from Hamlet moment – it forced me to look totally into myself and I saw the “black and grained spots” i.e was absolutely horrified by what I saw. Even an episode of Jonathan Creek delved into this curious phobia – a chronophobic character played by Dermot Crowley in a 1998 episode (“Time Waits For Norman”) actually removes hands off clocks and concocted an elaborate scheme in order to give himself “more time.” Even David Renwick’s brilliant dialogue perfectly encapsulated the concept of the phobia:
“Time? It’s slipping through out fingers…faster than ever….time can never be reclaimed. What is the past..where does it go?” (paraphrased-ish)
Which is obvious – time can indeed be never reclaimed.
“No point raking over the past.”
“Stop living in the past”
“You can’t change the past!”
“Get over it.”
All of the above may be true, so these all being the case, why are we all guilty of doing them? You can’t go back in time. Yet people always look to the past almost out of desperation when their world comes crashing down around them. Like inEastenders or any soap, say some character has an affair, one of the first lines they are guaranteed to utter is “If I could turn the clock back, I would.” Wouldn’t it be the answer to so many of our problems if we could? We’d all love to have a time turner like in Harry Potter. I know I would.
I myself spend, and have spent a great many years with my head buried in a sandpit of “What If”s. What if I’d got off my backside sooner and realised that at 16, most other gays go out and fuck everything in trousers for example? What if I’d realised that not everyone at school was out to get me? What if I had done this? Then this would have happened…the list just goes on and on. For me, hindsight is a curse and frankly I’d be better off forgetting everything. One thing I’ve always been guilty of is judging people on their own pasts and usually flying into a jealous rage because they have a more interesting past than me. All I have to show for my 21 years on this earth is a string of missed oppertunities, failed auditions and jobs, and a sexual past even the most repressed gay would sneer at. But does this really matter in the here and now?
I know damn well I can’t turn the clock back. I can’t go back five years, bleach my hair and start advertising myself as the newest boi/chicken on the gay scene. Nor could I go back fifteen years and realise that kids make friends when they start school, not running around the playground in their own little world. Not just that far back - I even fume at recent events such as “what if I’d put my camera in my pocket, least it wouldn’t be sitting on my table with a buggered screen”. But the sad fact is, yes, the past does matter. Because the past has shaped me into who I am today. And I don’t like what I am today. So I almost explode with frustration at my past self because it could have been a whole new kettle of fish had I stopped and realised what was happening in the REAL world, not just my own.
But yet, I don’t get people firing 20 questions at me for what I did six months ago, nor do they tell me they can’t have anything to do with me because of what I did on 22 October 2004. (Nothing noteworthy probably – knowing me probablpy another wasted day in front of a screen. YAWN.)
So to conclude another day’s innate ramblings. Yes, the past does have a meaning. You only have one shot at life. Therefore you should get the most out of it. Otherwise you will end up a sad and bitter old grouch. Just like me.
