• Writer Jim Hines discussed what his experience writing fan fiction taught him about writing. This included "Writing good fanfic is just as challenging as writing good anything else", "Instant feedback is dangerously addictive", "Fanfic can be freeing", "I can do 'realtime' writing", and "A writer is someone who writes. I’ve never understood why some people jealously protect the coveted title of 'Author' or 'Writer.'...Having done both profic and fanfic, I don’t get it. Calling someone who does fanfic a writer or an author doesn’t in any way diminish or dilute me and my work. Why is this even an argument?"
• Teen Librarian Toolbox hosted a post by author Frankie Brown discussing fanfiction and writer's block. "I couldn’t invest in writing original fiction. I was too tired, too anxious, too stuck." She turned to "Fanfiction. Lots and lots of Sherlock fanfiction. Reading it, writing it (Yes! Writing it!), reviewing it, chatting with bloggers and digging through archives. Sitting down to write about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson didn’t make my chest feel tight or my throat close up. There were no expectations. If it sucked, who cared? No one would know it was me. But of course it was me. Me at the keyboard, remembering why I loved writing, and -- eventually, tentatively -- typing out the first sentences to my next novel. When I submitted my final edits to Meredith, editor-in-awesome at Bloomsbury Spark, I was as happy and excited as I should’ve been."
• Writer A.L.S. Vossler told a similar tale. "I was sailing through some rather severe writing doldrums with my novel when I experienced this fan fiction epiphany. So, swallowing even more of my pride, I allowed myself to indulge in a little fan fiction writing and returned to my former habit of telling stories to myself. I was blown away by how much fun it was. My creativity levels soared. I wrote pages and pages of fan fiction in a few days. That was when the bonds of writer’s block fell away and I returned to my own novel, my own 'real' writing."
• Blogger Sara K. cited a fanfiction drawback that led her to stop reading. "I think being aromantic/asexual is a big part why I could not get into fanfiction. When I first learned about online fanfiction, I imagined being able to explore many different aspects of stories I loved. When I discovered how the vast majority of fanfiction revolves around romance and sex, so much so that identifying the ‘ship is a standard part of categorization ... I felt really disappointed...Yet finding fic...is so hard that it’s not worth it ... especially when you are part of a community where you’re expected to at least read each other’s fics. I simply felt more comfortable just staying out of the fanfic arena."

What fanfiction benefits have you come across? Write about it on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• Over the last ten years as fanworks have spread to more and more online sites, it's become a daily occurrence to find a media story pointing to one or more of them. Often these stories profess a sense of astonishment that they exist but don't do any research or provide any useful information. More recently, an even less informative but more unpleasant stunt has become common, as interviewers use fanworks to provoke a celebrity reaction. The fanwork creators are generally no more pleased at the outcome than the celebrities.
• While such incidents have occurred repeatedly in connection to various fandoms, one has finally brought the fan point-of-view into the media coverage. As reported in various outlets, at a special screening for Sherlock fans its panel moderator insisted on the lead actors reading excerpts from a NSFW fanfic. What was different were the number of writers focusing on fans' reactions. "There has been an outpouring of support for ‘mildredandbobbin’ from Tumblr Sherlockians, with one slash fiction writer even outing herself and declared that she was proud of what she wrote. Another supporter has written an open letter, attacking Moran and saying that she has helped perpetuate a misogynistic misrepresentation of the fangirls."
• Chris Meadows at Teleread prompted a discussion about the issue. "So, both Cumberbatch and Freeman seem to be more or less cool with the whole slash fan art thing. Yet various personalities seem to think it’s funny to confront them with this stuff over and over, as if this time they’ll manage to get a rise out of them."
• Author Angela Highland expressed concern at the message being sent by such incidents. "I’m a fan of not pointing and laughing at people. There’s way too much of that in the world. And not enough encouragement of people to make some goddamn art."
• Zap2It recounted the incident with many excerpts of the fic, but concluded "There may be two important lessons here: 1) Fan fiction has its place and this was not it. 2) Never mess with a fandom. They do not appreciate those who mock."
• Queerty called the stunt a disaster. "According to audience reports, as is often the case when mainstream tastes detect even a hint of kink, Moran presented the fanfic as mocking and silly and campy and lame. Because gosh, how stupid of people to be passionate about something."
• The Telegraph went beyond the incident to mention fanfiction traditions and explain what went wrong. "Some of the people writing fanfic - including the author of the piece Moran supplied to Cumberbatch and Freeman - are grown women and mums finding an enjoyable and productive outlet for having fun. They don't want to see the fourth wall broken any more than the actors want to do it."
• Blogger Sarah Siegel took a contrary view, in part because of the lack of visible reaction to previous events. "And nobody’s ever really made a fuss about it. The author or artist chose to share their work publicly, and at worst it makes for an uncomfortable interview — which is the interviewer’s prerogative. The one caveat I’d add is that there is a difference between a TV interview intended to promote a project which will be screened to thousands (or millions) of people, and a very intimate Q&A intended for a small audience of die-hard fans. So if Moran made one gaffe, it was in not really understanding her audience." If so, then presumably the next time such an incident occurs, no one will be able to suggest that it's never mattered to anyone.

What fanwork ambushes have you seen happening? Write about them Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• Fanworks as an element of fandom activity seems to be growing, even among media outlets that cover fannish topics. Pop Crush decided to poll its readers on "Would you rather read fan fiction about One Direction‘s Harry Styles or Austin Mahone?" while Hardwood Paroxysm began mixing fanfiction and analysis. "Here’s a new feature we’re trying out at the Ol’ Paroxysm. It’s called Fantasy Fiction. One writer, Kyle Soppe, gives you a fantasy basketball update for the week–who’s been good and who’ll be good pickups. Another writer (this week, it’s Jordan White) writes some fan fiction about the week’s players."
• Meanwhile on the literary front, fanfiction is fitting right in. In a book review of A Little History of Literature in the New Statesman they note that "[t]here is no hand-wringing about the death of the book...[n]or does he bewail the popularity of the fan-fiction websites...These forums for the common writer revive a form of storytelling that, like the Odyssey, “is not commissioned, nor is it paid for, nor is it ‘reviewed’, nor is it bought. It is not, as the term is usually applied, ‘published’. 'Fanfic' is part of an evolving online republic in which writing is not a commodity but a 'conversation.'"
• Mashable asked about the future of book clubs while discussing Tumblr's reblog book club. "Fershleiser made sure that she chose a book that would appeal to Tumblr readers. `In choosing books, it’s a combination of what do I feel comfortable recommending [to someone] as young as 13, but also will be compelling to adult readers, and what will resonate with the Tumblr community, which skews a little nerdy, a little progressive and a lot fandomy'." Being only online and "moderating a month-long book discussion ...was much more time-consuming than hosting a physical book club. `The challenge is how much time it takes to do right — trying to respond to every question and concern, making sure everyone's being heard.'"
• Novelist Daniel R. Pike told the TriValley Times about the difficulty of getting published, even if he first succeeded at 17. “Final Fantasy 7 is the reason I went to college to be an English major” because “I started writing fan fiction for that game when I was in high school."

What fandom reading have you been doing? Write about it Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

• Communities of fanfic writers took their writing group practices online decades ago. On the Media reported on a commercial copy of these spaces, dubbing it "virtual workshopping. A website from Penguin Publishing, Book Country, enables thousands of writers to exchange manuscripts and notes and self-publish their work. A few have even gotten traditional publishing deals through the site." Other than the book deals, the mechanisms sound familiar. "[I]f a writer has written something that is just awful, not very many people will comment on it or they will comment briefly and respectfully but not say very much; there's a sort of graceful fade away. And the second thing that can happen is a manuscript that might seem terrible to one reader seems fantastic to another, because they are the right audience for it. You can find sub-categories and niche audiences that you wouldn't otherwise access."
• While not commercial, Caroline Siede wrote in A.V. Club about a fandom practice that has been automated, making gifs. "Gifs have long been the bread and butter of Tumblr—the perfect way to capture every moment of Dean/Castiel sexual tension, every David Tennant eyebrow raise, and, apparently, every moment of Omar Little badassery...Either to mock these fans or to help them celebrate their beloved Wire by capturing even more moments from the show, programmer Darius Kazemi has created a robot that posts a random gif and an accompanying line of dialogue from The Wire every hour."
• At SB Nation an "experiment" in writing fanfiction to accompany a photo turned into dueling fics when "my effort at fulfilling this assignment struck my esteemed girlfriend as so gross that she would not let it stand but composed her own rival fan fiction Friday to bring the touch of urbanity to the proceedings."
• Hero Complex interviewed Eric Moro, Wikia’s director of entertainment programming and asked "Why a collaborative effort between professionals and an online fan community?" to which he replied "[O]ur various anime and manga communities draw incredibly large audiences from all over the world. So hosting a project in this space allowed us to play at a global level. Second...it’s more about the creator that’s involved than it is about the character(s). Third, comic book, movie and TV characters are all tied up in complicated rights issues/licenses. And while we’re just starting to see networks work in this space (“The Vampire Diaries” fan fiction through Amazon’s Kindle Worlds, for example), it’s still not an idea the industry has fully embraced."

What "ripped from fandom" stories have you seen? Write about them on Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.